Spotlight for Wings of Sorrow and Bone by Beth Cato

From the author of The Clockwork Dagger comes an exciting novella set in the same world…

After being rescued by Octavia Leander from the slums of Caskentia, Rivka Stout is adjusting to her new life in Tamarania. But it’s hard for a blossoming machinist like herself to fit in with proper society, and she’d much rather be tinkering with her tools than at a hoity-toity party any day.

When Rivka stumbles into a laboratory run by the powerful Balthazar Cody, she also discovers a sinister plot involving chimera gremlins and the violent Arena game Warriors. The innocent creatures will end up hurt, or worse, if Rivka doesn’t find a way to stop Mr. Cody. And to do that means she will have to rely on some unexpected new friends.

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Guest Post

Rivka and the Gremlins

by Beth Cato

I like to write about women finding confidence in their own strength and ability. My two novels, The Clockwork Dagger and The Clockwork Crown, feature Octavia Leander, an unusually gifted and competent healer who finds herself the target of assassination and mayhem. Her incredible healing power is a major part of both books; Octavia craves to help everyone she can.

In The Clockwork Crown, she helped a teenage girl named Rivka. Rivka was working in a bakery in the slums near the dilapidated palace of the royal family. Rivka’s benefactor was not a kind man, and Rivka had lived in terror for months since her mother had died. As the plot pushed along, Octavia did what she could to help Rivka and provided her passage south to the household of a dear friend.

My novella, Wings of Sorrow and Bone, is Rivka’s story. Months after moving to Tamarania, she is uncomfortable in a new life of wealth and stability. She would much rather twiddle with machinery in her workshop than socialize with the well-to-do of society, who know her as an outsider by her quaint accent and cleft lip. When Rivka wanders from a party, she cannot resist taking a peek in the laboratory of one of the most wealthy men in the city-state… and what she finds changes her life.

She finds gremlins. Dozens upon dozens, all kept in cages. Gremlins are a signature element in my Clockwork Dagger world, and a reader favorite. They are hideously cute with green skin and bat wings, rather like furless cats. In my books’ world, most people regard gremlins as pests that thieve food and silver. Rivka has found the workspace of the man who created gremlins out of magic and science, and his experimentation hasn’t stopped. His cruelty is blatant. Rivka can’t stand it. She remembers how Octavia Leander saved her from a wretched, caged-in life; she can’t simply walk away from these gremlins in need, even if society at large despises them. She knows what that is like, too.

In Wings of Sorrow and Bone, Rivka takes on the challenge to save gremlins from one of the most powerful men around. She has no magic at her disposal, no wealth… but she does have strength through her compassion, and with that power, she might be able to change the world.

Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham.

She’s the author of THE CLOCKWORK DAGGER steampunk fantasy series from Harper Voyager. The newest book, THE CLOCKWORK CROWN, comes out on June 9th, 2015.